Oh man, I forgot to point out, that was a different Bobby. Whoops.

I'm sorry that it's been a while since I've updated anything.

Anyways, enjoy!

Luan finished her dinner three days later, feeling content. The improv competition had been going quite well so far. The judging was harder, sure, and so was the competition, but she thought the Chuckle-Monkeys were faring surprisingly well.

She stood up, along with the other denizens of her table, and walked over to the buffet line to get ice cream.

After getting in line near the middle of the pack, Luan suddenly realised that she was still holding her fork for no apparent reason. She stepped out of line to set it down on her table. She returned and stood at the end of the line, as is socially appropriate.

Kaitlin called down to her, "Hey, why don't you get back in place? You were only gone for a moment."

Luan responded, somewhat harshly, "I'm supposed to go to the end of the line."

Maggie, who was now in front of her, turned around. "You can go in front of me if you want."

Luan replied, "No, I have to stay here."

Luan was a stickler for the rules, even when it came at her own detriment.

She hoped the other girls would let up and stop being so nice to her.

Maggie furrowed her brow but didn't turn away. "Is something bothering you?"

Luan answered before she had a chance to think about what she was saying. "Yes."

Maggie lowered her voice almost unconsciously. "Do you want to talk to me about it?"

"Sure."

Maggie nodded and turned to face front.

Luan looked down at herself, wondering why she had said that, wondering why either of them had said anything.

In her head, she started planning out how she would talk to Maggie.

She knew, however, that no matter how flawlessly you mapped out a conversation, it would never go according to plan, as she remembered from talking to Luna about Benny.

Luan fidgeted with her wristband, something she had picked up as free swag at the competition. It read: "National Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-TALK".

She wondered if it might come in handy.

After a hectic excursion with several other team members in Maggie's hotel room which involved shaving cream, assumed nudity, and a terrible coming-out-of-the-closet joke, Luan walked over to Maggie and said, with a pounding heart, "You wanna talk now?"

Maggie nodded. "Your room?"

Luan said, "Sure. Drexler's probably out chatting with people now, and we have a while until curfew, so I think we'll be fine."

It was bad luck that Luan had the most annoying and fakest girl on the team as her roommate (even the idiot Lizzie was at least a nice kid), but it was good luck that Drexler was ineffably social.

As she and Maggie walked down the hall to her hotel room, Luan wasn't so worried about what to say as about to whom she would be saying it. Maggie wasn't exactly the most social of people. She wasn't exactly quiet, but she was rather grumpy and cynical. The two of them weren't even particularly fond of each other, and their paths didn't cross very frequently. It surprised Luan to no end that Maggie would happen to notice something wrong with her.

At the same time, Luan knew that underneath Maggie's jaded, pessimistic exterior lay a good heart, and here was further proof.

But how had she noticed Luan's discontentment?

Maybe Maggie recognised something in Luan that she herself had once felt.

For a girl as unempathetic as Maggie, it should have taken an act of God to get her to notice anything.

There probably was one.

Luan arrived at her room and unlocked the door with her room key. She and Maggie entered. Luan propped the door open a crack using the door guard, as per school policy.

They each sat on a bed. Luan sighed.

Maggie asked, "So, what's up?"

Luan sighed again. "I... First off, can you just promise me you won't tell anyone about this?"

Maggie nodded, faintly smiling. "Sure."

Luan had no idea what was running through Maggie's head, but she knew she couldn't leave her in the dark any longer.

She didn't want to tell her.

She didn't want to tell anybody.

But it looked like she had no choice.

She'd just have to get it over with.

It was like ripping off a Band-Aid. The sooner it was over, the better and less painful it would be for her.

Luan said, in a soft voice, "I... I cut myself."

Maggie's eyes widened.

"I cut my side, so... so nobody could see it. See?"

Luan lifted her shirt and pointed to her faint scar so Maggie could see that she wasn't lying.

Maggie's expression was now one of utter horror.

Luan couldn't bear to look at her any longer. She stared at the floor.

"I... I'm not really sure why I did it. I just...

"I did it last Sunday, after we won. I was just... I just felt useless, like I didn't deserve the trophy, so... yeah."

Luan didn't really know what more to say. There was so much that she wanted to say, but she couldn't find the words for it.

Maggie spoke up, slowly shaking her head in disbelief. "Luan, you're not useless. You... Why would you even think that?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. I know that I'm... that I'm not useless, that I'm nice and kind and funny and all that sort of thing... but I can't believe it. Something inside me... it just stops me. I don't get it. I just can't believe it."

Maggie looked intently at Luan, leaning forward, face bearing concern. "Luan... listen. You... you're great. You're friggin' awesome. You're one of the funniest people I know, and you're really super smart. You're like a genius. And... and you're one of the sweetest, too. There's... there's no reason at all that you should be thinking like that."

Luan sighed. "I know. But... I guess I just focus on the bad stuff. I can't not focus on it, is the thing."

Luan looked up and saw Nadia and Bobby passing by the hotel room through the window. She gave them a quick wave.

Nadia and Bobby were her closest friends on the team. More than anyone else, except for Luna, she wanted to talk to them. But... Would they think she was joking? Would they take her seriously? She didn't know.

She didn't want to take the risk.

Luan said, "I just... I didn't wanna tell anyone. I know that's what you oughta do. But... you know how they joke about suicide and stuff like that. I dunno if... if they'd believe me."

"I understand."

Luan turned over, lying on her stomach on the bed. She didn't cry. She didn't want to. She knew she might but hoped she wouldn't.

Maggie asked, "Why'd you tell me, then?"

"Because you asked."

Luan propped up her head so that her voice wouldn't be muffled. "I... It's like I've got these two voices in my head, and they're fighting with each other. I've got the one voice that wants me to, say... to keep working, to keep pushing myself; and I've got another that says I should chill out. And if I ignore one of them, the other one starts yelling at me. And neither of them are right. So they're always unhappy... and so am I. I don't think I have a good conscience anymore."

Maggie looked on, listening intently.

Luan continued, "It gets unbearable, living with myself. I can't do anything right, I always make a bad decision, whatever I do can always be better than that... I'm not a perfectionist, but at the same time, I am. And it just drives me mad."

Maggie finally spoke: "You... Maybe you should talk to someone, get a therapist or something."

Luan cracked a smile. "Yeah; I've been through three therapists already. It was for helping me with social skills. I'm planning on finding one on my own when I get to college."

Maggie nodded. "That's an idea. Maybe you should let your parents know so they can help you out."

"They can't know."

Maggie raised her eyebrows. "And why is that?"

"B-because... they'll worry about me. I don't want anyone to worry about me. I... I don't want... I don't want anyone to cry at my funeral."

Maggie looked on in disbelief for a moment. "Then don't do... then don't do this sort of thing."

Luan shook her head slowly. "I'm such an idiot."

Luan's phone vibrated loudly. She took it out; her mom was calling her. "Speak of the devil," she muttered under her breath.

Luan turned to Maggie. "My mom's calling."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Not if you don't want to."

Maggie remained on the bed while Luan answered the phone.

"Hey, mom."

"Hey, Luan! How's the competition going?"

"Really well! I met a couple of cool people, and the judges are all really nice!"

"That's great! How was dinner?"

"It was fine. We had pasta and chicken parm, then ice cream. I'm just chilling out in my room now."

"Yeah? Have you been hanging out with anyone?"

Luan glanced over to Maggie, who had taken out her phone.

"Not right now, but I was hanging out in Kaitlin's room. Oh man, Bobby pranked Lizzie so hard about the whole dropped sunglasses thing. It was awesome."

"Dropped sunglasses? What was that about?"

"Yeah, well, you know, Lizzie's a germaphobe. So, she accidentally drops her sunglasses on the ground that she got as swag, where she thought she saw a guy spill some stuff earlier, so she throws them away, the idiot. Then she can't see when she's walking outside and stuff, so she asks to get back Maggie's sunglasses, which Maggie had borrowed from her before, but she doesn't give them back. And Maggie wants them back, but Lizzie says no, 'cuz Maggie doesn't need them."

Luan's mom laughed. "That sounds nuts. What did Bobby do?"

"He and Nadia filled Lizzie's shower with peanut butter and shaving cream, then threw in the sunglasses. She got really ticked off!"

"That sounds entertaining! What are you doing now?"

"Nothing much, just hanging out in my room, playing on my phone and stuff."

"All right. Have you been doing your homework?"

Luan winced internally. "Yeah, kind of."

"Well, don't forget to do that. You've gotta keep up in your classes, remember? We don't want you fazing out."

"I gotcha. I'll get right on that."

"All right, well, I'll leave you to that. Good night!"

"G'night, Mom! See you on Saturday!"

Luan hung up the phone and looked back over at Maggie, who glanced up from her phone. "I'm really sorry about that."

Maggie put her phone back in her pocket and stood up. "It's fine. Now listen. Please don't do anything like that again. And if you do, you know you can talk to me."

Luan nodded, sobering up again. "Yeah. Thanks so much."

Maggie walked over to the door. "Not a problem."

The two girls hugged. Then Luan opened up the door, and Maggie walked out. "See you tomorrow," she said.

Maggie just waved briefly, then walked down the hall.

Luan hoped for her sake that Maggie's shower was clean by now.

Speaking of which, she needed to take a shower.

Luan set her homework out on the desk so she could do it afterwards.

She was glad that she had talked to Maggie.

But at the same time, she wished it had been Luna instead.

She wouldn't tell Luna now. Luna would almost certainly tell her parents, and they couldn't know.

She gave herself a mental pat on the back for not crying.

Luan grabbed a change of clothes, then stepped into the bathroom.

Hope to see you soon!